GRAND VALLEY
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GV student engineers test device at NASA
BY DYLAN GROSSER ASSISTANTNEWS@LANTHORN.COM
T
he optimistic saying “the sky’s the limit” is supposed to tell someone that their dreams and hopes are boundless, but for a group of student engineers at Grand Valley State University, their dreams have surpassed the sky and flown into outer space. On May 23, for the first time in GVSU history, a group of students were able to create and test a device designed for life in outer space for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Houston, Texas. It started in October 2016, when senior Brianna Forsthoefel asked fellow senior Taylor Rieckhoff if she wanted to be apart of a team that would design and eventually test a device at NASA. Rieckhoff agreed and brought on more members, including seniors Jake Stephens and Dan Scheske. The eight member team, including faculty advisor Amy Lenz, then entered to see if their device proposal would be approved - which it was in December 2016 - and to find a way to develop it for testing. The team developed a name for themselves, “North Star,” a play on living in the north and wanting to “reach for the stars.” The device itself is referred to by the team as a “surface sampling device.” It resembles a shovel, only without the head and with a box attached to the handle to hold the particles in. It works by pressing the button inside the handle, allowing dirt and other particles to be let inside through the opening on the bottom. Once the button is released, everything on the ground that was picked up is stored in the container unit. Stephens said
the device was purposely made to be simple and user friendly, to cause less stress for astronauts in outer space. He said the device will theoretically be used on Mars to pick up particles or articulate for studying. Every team from different colleges across the U.S. that came to NASA each had only 20 minutes to test their device and show how it’s useful. While it’s a competition getting a device proposal approved, the competition ends once everyone reaches Houston, according to Stephens. Members of the team gave directions to a crew of divers who would test the device inside of a swimming pool, to simulate the low gravity atmosphere of space. The team ran into multiple issues with printing parts of the device using a 3D printer. Scheske said sometimes the printer would print inconsistent parts that would not fit together correctly. It wasn’t until the team received help from Lenz to learn about tolerancing, establishing the direction of prints, and using different filament layers to print the device successfully. Rieckhoff said Lenz helped tremendously in the success of their team. “Without our advisor Amy, our trip down there would not have been as smooth or possible,” Rieckhoff said. “She just really rocked it out being our faculty advisor.” Lenz said that in Houston, many other faculty advisors from different teams approached her to tell them how impressed they were by team North Star’s professionalism in demonstrating their project. “I thought that was a huge compliment and a reflection of how great and dedicated this team was, and how well they represented GVSU,” Lenz said. SEE NASA | A2
ADMINISTRATION
Interim dean of students focused on student success, engagement BY KAYLA TUCKER NEWS@LANTHORN.COM
Stephen Glass just wants to help students in any way he can. In his new position as acting vice provost for student affairs and dean of students at Grand Valley State University, he’s excited to help students succeed. After the sudden leave of Eileen Sullivan, vice provost for student affairs and dean of students, Glass was asked to step into the position, which he did not hesitate to do. In his position, Glass will oversee student affairs and conduct. Glass started at the university in 2001 in the movement science department as one of the first exercise science faculty members. In 2006, he created GVSU’s exercise science program. “Now we have, I think, 1,100 majors,” Glass said. The following year, Glass became the associate dean for the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies. When the dean retired in 2013, Glass went back to teach exercise science. “Exercise science had grown so large; I wanted to help the department, help the program grow more,” Glass said. “In the last four years up to now, I’ve been trying to align with the university’s idea of high-impact practices. Those are the types of practices that really have a substantial impact on the students’ learning experience. It might be study abroad, it could be service learning—there’s a variety of different things. But relative to my department, research is a high-impact practice, so I try to get as many students involved in research as possible.” Glass said he would have 20 students a year helping with research and still has some projects going on. BeTESTING THE DEVICE: GVSU engineering students give instructions to a team of divers who try out the device in a swimming pool. COURTESY | AMY LENZ
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GRAND RAPIDS
Understanding community giving BY JENNA FRACASSI ASSOCIATE@LANTHORN.COM
Grand Valley State University’s Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy has recently released a report designed to understand philanthropic dynamics on a community level. The study, “Understanding the Philanthropic Character of Communities,” applies a new method for assessing the philanthropic character of a community. “Our primary goal was to try to
develop a way of studying something that’s very hard to study: the philanthropic ‘character’ of a community,” said Michael Moody, Frey Foundation chair for family philanthropy and research team member, via email. “People often say things like, ‘We are a generous community’ or ‘Philanthropists in our city are pretty innovative.’ We have this sense that there is a charitable personality, if you will, that pervades any given place. But that personality is hard to study and analyze systematically with good
data and careful methods. In this study, we developed an initial methodology for doing that and ‘tested’ that method on two communities we know well: Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.” When explaining the new research method, Michelle Miller-Adams, political science professor at GVSU and member of the report’s research team, said via email that they used a variety of publicly available data sources to paint a picture of the patterns of giving in the two communities. “We rounded this out by speaking
STUDYING A POPULATION: Michael Moody, pictured, is the Frey Foundation chair for family philanthropy. He and his colleagues conducted research on philanthropy efforts in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. COURTESY | JOHNSONCENTER.ORG
with some knowledgeable observers of philanthropy in the two places and compiling three comparative case studies based on public information,” she said. “All these sources of information could be used to analyze other communities.” The cities of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, located 50 miles apart, share many similar community features, but there are also differences in their philanthropic character. The research presented in the study looked at the different community approaches to giving to downtown development, the arts and K-12 education. “We focused on the communities of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo because of our location and personal connections to these places and also because they provide an interesting comparison,” Miller-Adams said. Research showed that both Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo are highly philanthropic communities. Both areas have well-established family and community foundations, and more giving is done through foundations in both counties than is done nationally. The study states that “this high level of philanthropy reflects the fact that both communities have a base of major donors who have made or inherited their money in the community and who expressed a clear expectation to give back to that community.” According to Miller-Adams, the main focus of the team’s research was on the activities of major donors within the two communities. This concentration was the result of the team believing that these wealthy individuals play a large part in shaping the philanthropic character of a community. “We found lots of similarities be-
tween the two communities but also some interesting differences in the areas of how donors give and the causes they give to,” Miller-Adams said. The study compared sources of giving, what influences giving and why donors give, as well as different ways of giving. In Grand Rapids, the study identified that faith-based social capital accounted for much of the giving. In other words, religion was one of the key factors that contributed to high giving in the city. In both Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, community expectation and orientation was recognized as being a major influence in giving. This is the idea that there is a shared expectation for major donors to give back to their communities and that donors are driven by their love for the community when it comes to giving. Some of the different forms of giving include foundation giving, corporate giving, anonymous giving, named giving, place-based giving and collaboration. The study also looks at the different tendencies and focus of donors in how and where they donate their money. The study, which Miller-Adams said was done in several stages over several years, involved the work of a graduate student assistant and four undergraduate Mawby Fellows, as well as the three researchers. GVSU’s research team included Miller-Adams and Johnson Center researchers Moody, Grace Denny and Teri Behrens. “One of the most exciting aspects of the research was to be involved in a truly collaborative process that
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